Design to ... standard not ... browser (was Re: Netscape 6 is out )

[George Porter]

As David Merchant noted
<http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/archive/0011/0195.html>, not all
browsers conform to standards. 

As has been noted before, it is possible to record user agents in your web
server logs.  Get to know your target audience.  How do they choose to view
your website?  What browsers do they use?

This approach presupposes server logs and a passing dedication to log
analysis.  Filtering your logs to campus IPs and examining the range of user
agents reported is one way for academic libraries to assess the state of
their community's browser biases.  Public libraries and other institutions
with more diverse core clientele will have a harder time using this
approach.

We have been debating the use of SSL with respect to various applications.
Concerns were initially raised about the ability of the local browser pool
to support SSL.  IE 3.X and NN 3.X (or higher) support SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0,
which covers microcomputers shipped since 1997(?).  Hard data is the way to
go in making decisions.

I'm told that IIS 5.0, under Win2K, will be able to query and record whether
or not browsers have JavaScript enabled.  This information will be useful in
deciding whether or not certain bells and whistles are worth implementing.
It may also be useful in deflating the resistance of some database vendors
who persist in sloppy coding creating numerous downstream problems in the
library world.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
Caltech, 1-43
Pasadena, CA  91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681